Welcome to this morning's edition of "First To Know," a series in which we keep you in the know on what's happening in the digital world. Today, we're looking at three particularly interesting stories.

Apple Reduces Memory Chip Orders From Samsung

Apple has ordered less memory chips for its upcoming next-gen iPhone from Samsung in order to diversify its sourcing portfolio, Reuters reports.

The decision, Reuters' sources claim, has nothing to do with the patent war between the two companies, as Apple has been looking to widen its supply chain for a while.

Since Kickstarter's inception three years ago, 30,000 projects have been backed by more than two million people, the company reports. But these are the success stories of Kickstarter, so what about the failures?

The company -- built on the concept of crowd sourcing funds for innovative, avant-garde, unexpected and often unimaginable projects -- has made its stake as a platform where inventors can take chances.

"The fact that Kickstarter allows creators to take risks and attempt to create something ambitious is a feature, not a bug," Kickstarter's blog states. "Some creators get in over their heads dealing with processes that are new to them."… Continue reading...

HootSuite has acquired Seesmic, one of its competitors in the social media management space, for an undisclosed sum, the two companies announced on Thursday.

HootSuite's CEO Ryan Holmes told TechCrunch that the main motivation for this acquisition is to build up its enterprise user base, which is currently about 4.5 million. According to TechCrunch, the final price of the acquisition will depend on how many Seesmic users end up switching over to HootSuite.

Seesmic is estimated to have roughly 30,000-40,000 monthly visitors, though the company's founder Loic Le Meur told TheNextWeb in an interview that his company actually has "hundreds of thousands of active users." Regardless, i… Continue reading...

Amazon had a big day. The online retail giant has refreshed and expanded its line of Kindle devices, introducing a new E Ink reader and some game-changing new tablets. Here's a summary of how Amazon shook up the tech world today.

What did Amazon reveal?

First up was a new E Ink reader, the Kindle Paperlight. This is a new touchscreen e-reader that blows the old black-and-white Kindles out of the water with its high-res screen and 25% better contrast. The new Kindle costs $119 and includes a built-in light for easy reading in the dark.

Barack Obama delivered a passionate defense of his record in office, and emphasized the differences between his platform and that of challenger Mitt Romney during his nomination acceptance speech delivered Thursday evening.

The speech was wildly popular on Twitter, peaking at 52,757 tweets per minute -- a new politics-related record for the platform.

Here's the line from Obama's prepared remarks, as given to the New York Times: "We believe that a little girl who's offered an escape from poverty by a great teacher or a grant for college could become the founder of the next Google."

And here's the line as delivered: "We believe that a little girl who's offered an escape from poverty by… Continue reading...

There was no shortage of GIFs from Thursday's Video Music Awards, as MTV and viewers instantly transformed the show's best moments into this year's most addictive web format.

MTV simplified the GIF-making process by embedding "Snap a GIF" button in every video player. Some of the resulting creations are displayed on this GIF Wall and on MTV's Tumblr page.

"This is the vernacular of the audience, so we want to give them more tools to amplify this behavior," Colin Helms, MTV's SVP of digital media, previously told Mashable. "We don't want to make it hard for them."

Along with its new line of Kindle tablets, Amazon unveiled a feature called FreeTime that "reinvents parental controls" at a press event on Thursday.

Kindle FreeTime lets parents control what media their children have access to, and for how long they can access that media. Need to put a cap on the amount of TV shows your child watches on their device? That's possible with FreeTime.

"With FreeTime, parents never have to worry what content their kids will access—parents select all of the content their kids can see and kids can't exit FreeTime without a password," reads an Amazonpress release.

The music service from Apple would supposedly work with all Apple's existing products. It would operate similarly to Pandora in that users could select a musician they like and a station would play songs by similar artists.

The WSJ article says Apple is attempting to negotiate its own licensing deals with record companies as opposed to the government-set rates paid by Pandora. The story also suggests this new service might be unveiled at Apple's big event next Wednesday, Sept… Continue reading...

1. Obama "Not Bad" Face

A press photo of Barack and Michelle making "O RLY" faces quickly spread around the web and eventually transformed into the Obama "Not Bad" meme. The POTUS himself even acknowledged the meme during his Reddit AMA. Image courtesy of Know Your Meme

We combed through piles of GIFs and mounds of advice animals to find 10 of the most rib-tickling Obama-inspired memes. So prepare yourself for the upcoming election by taking a flip through the gallery.

When Barnes & Noble released the Nook with GlowLight earlier this year, we suspected that it was only a matter of time before Amazon answered with its own e-reader with a built-in light.

Today we saw that reader in the form of the Kindle Paperwhite. The e-reader has a backlit display, improved screen resolution and new hand-tuned fonts especially for the Kindle. Fonts are available in six different styles and eight different sizes, so you can read at just the right size for you.

The touch-only device -- you lose all the buttons with this one -- is light, easy to hold, and based on our first impressions, is an e-reader you're not going to ever want to put down.

Boy band One Direction on Thursday night won the MTV Video Music Awards moonman for Most-Share Worthy Video, which pay homage to video parodies, lip-dubs, remixes and covers.

Fans voted more than 50 million times for the nominees using Twitter hashtags and got to see what was winning in real time, creating a heated competition. One Direction's "What Makes You Beautiful" just edged out Justin Bieber's "Boyfriend." Others vying for the crown were Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe," Gotye's "Somebody That I Used to Know" and Beyonce's "Countdown."

The new "How to Paint Anything" app [iTunes link] is a digital catalogue of paint projects, for everything from walls to fabric to flooring. Items you can paint are arranged in six general categories, with more than 50 detailed painting project instructions. The 99 cent app works on iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. No plans for an Android version yet.

Jill Waage, editorial director for home content at Better Homes and Gardens, tells Mashable they focused on painting specifically because "it's such an affordable way to update your space."

Sharpie, known more for its colorful markers than for its music cred, will reveal an interactive video for the California Wives song "Purple" in an ad during Thursday's MTV Video Music Awards.

The 60-second TV spot will show Sharpie fans' drawings amid the band's performance in the music video and then encourage viewers to go online to create their own visual "Music Video Mashup" experience.

It's the latest interactive video offering in a recent wave of them. Linkin Park's video for "Lost in the Echo" let fans put their Facebook photos into the storyline. And Old Spice's "Muscle Music" ad tasked people to create sounds using as their keyboard the Old Spice Guy's muscles.

Most people don't hear the name "Leighton Meester" and think "jewelry," but there's a strong correlation between the Gossip Girl star and consumers who are in the market for some bling.

The relationship had been unexploited and probably unknown until SocialFlow, the New York-based social media marketing firm, crunched the numbers. Working on behalf of a large jewelry client, SocialFlow was able to buy ads against Facebook conversations about Meester.

The result, says Frank Speiser, co-founder of SocialFlow, was a 2x to 3x jump in click-through rates for ads.

Since CTRs for Facebook ads are notoriously low, the actual figures are unlikely to impress outsiders, but getting a 0.… Continue reading...

The U.S. Open is among the most high-profile events in tennis. It's a big deal for players who are looking not only for a major championship -- but also to improve endorsement potential.

While nothing can replace the marketability of competitive success, athletes' social media profiles are more relevant than ever.

So which U.S. Open stars are most attractive? SponsorHub thinks it has the answer. The company uses a scoring metric based on athletes' sporting performance combined with their social influence on Twitter, Facebook and Klout to rank their value to advertisers.

SponsorHub's findings: Roger Federer doubles as the top-ranked player in men's tennis and the sport's most mark… Continue reading...

Although the Kindle Fire HD and Nexus 7 both tout 1,280 x 800 resolution displays -- compared to the newly-revamped Kindle Fire's 1,024 x 600 display -- the Nexus 7 weighs in as the lightest (12 ounces). The Kindle Fire HD is almost two ounces more (13.9 ounces), and the Kindle Fire is 14.1 oz.

10. President Obama and the Fight for LGBT Rights

Glee star Jane Lynch narrates this documentary style ad (it's more than 5 minutes long) on a popular topic for the Democratic party -- LGBT rights. The ad builds up to the fact that Obama is the first sitting President to support same sex marriage. The President speaks candidly about "Don't Ask Don't Tell" and what it meant for him to repeal it. Obama places himself as the advocate for the LGBT community. And Lady Gaga makes a brief appearance. The ad had 73,064 shares.

President Obama will speak Thursday night at the Democratic National Convention to formally accept his bid as the Democratic candidate for the 2012 Presidential election, and no one can predict how much his speech will stir up the social networks.

Unruly Media has analyzed that buzz, rounding up the top 10 most-shared ads on YouTube. Though this is Obama's second campaign, his ads have hit record shares -- his number one ad being shared more than 318,000 times on Facebook and Twitter.

Amazon has announced the next-generation of its popular Kindle Fire tablet: the Kindle Fire HD. Available in both a 7-inch and a larger 8.9-inch model, the device improves upon the original model, while keeping some of the same features users have come to know and love.

Available for pre-order Thursday, the pint-sized tablet will keep the $199 price point of its predecessor (which saw a price drop today to $169), while buffing up its spec sheet.

One new feature called Free Time allows parents to customize what their children are able to do on the tablet. With support for several different profiles -- so you can have one for each child -- the feature can let you dictate how much tim… Continue reading...

Journalists from publications all around the world swarmed on Tampa and Charlotte to cover the Republican and Democratic National Conventions over the past two weeks. Among the 15,000 of them were Jessica Wilt and John Ennis, two citizen journalists equipped with little more than an iPhone and iPad, a few accessories and social media accounts.

Wilt and Ennis had a mission: As winners of the Huffington Post's "OffTheBus" citizen journalism project, they were tasked with bringing their own perspectives and experience into their coverage of the conventions. They set up YouTube and Ustream accounts, received a few days' worth of journalism and technical training, then sent off to Tampa and… Continue reading...

Google is expanding its New York Fashion Week offerings this season. In addition to streaming 30 shows live on YouTube, a 17% increase from last year, the tech giant is also partnering with brands to bring on-the-spot Fashion Week coverage to Google+.

Beginning at 1:15 p.m. ET Friday, Teen Vogue beauty director Eva Chen will be hosting a Google Hangout on startup Lyst's Google+ page before fashion designer Rebecca Minkoff's show at Lincoln Center. Between four and five people, all pre-screened, will be invited into the Hangout to pose questions to backstage makeup and hair artists as well as Minkoff herself. Chen will moderate and also ask questions e-mailed in to editor@lyst.co… Continue reading...

This is war. Amazon's jaw-dropping new collection of Kindle Fire HD tablets recalibrates almost everything we thought we knew about the tablet market.

It lowered prices while offering enhancements and fresh technology in almost every area imaginable. It took the warning shot of the successful Kindle Fire tablet, based on Android 2.3 "Gingerbread," and turned it into a fusillade of tablet options.

As Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos unveiled one Kindle Fire after another -- there were actually so many I got confused -- it became clear that there were no rules about prices, screen sizes, and component technologies.

Microsoft is trying a new marketing gambit to get consumers to use its Bing search engine: A blind taste test.

The campaign, called Bing It On, asks users to compare any five search results for Bing and Google side-by-side without knowing which is which, and pick out the results that are the most relevant. Users can do this using BingItOn.com and then find out whether they really prefer Google or Bing. It's basically the online equivalent of the Pepsi Challenge.

The Bing It On campaign comes on the heels of an independent study of nearly 1,000 Internet users commissioned by Microsoft, which found that people prefer Bing's search results to Google's two-to-one in blind comparison… Continue reading...

eBay has acquired t3-year-old social shopping discovery site Svpply for an undisclosed amount, the company announced Thursday.

Like Pinterest, The Fancy and Lyst, all of which Svpply predates, users can use bookmarklet and repinning tools to index their favorite product finds from other users on the site and elsewhere on the web. Users are encouraged to discover new styles and click through to purchase.

In a corporate blog post, eBay implies that the acquisition is mainly about gaining "access to technology talent" to improve its own products. "Svpply.com assets -- including a talented team of six designers and developers -- are well-suited to help eBay advance more personalize… Continue reading...

Whether you're looking to make industry contacts or learn the latest trends in advertising, technology and media, Mashable's Events Board has something for you. We picked four of the latest events to be listed to give you an idea of the possibilities for networking, developing skills and moving your business forward. Check these out, or head over to the full listings to find relevant events in your area or preferred destination.

Our events board was recently updated so you can easily sort listings by when they were added. Many event organizers offer a discount code for Mashable readers and feature a YouTube video of a past event so you'll know what to expect. You can also subscribe to… Continue reading...